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Peter Singeris one of today's most controversial philosophers. He is best known as a champion of animal rights as well as many other very interesting moral arguments. On a personal level his reasoning on "The Ethics of What We Eat" has persuaded me to become a vegetarian. Here is his Wikipedia entry:

In this chat with Richard Dawkins, Singer makes his persuasive case for a vegetarian diet. I'm quite a fan of Dawkins as well but I was very disappointed in his response to Singer's vegetarian argument: "...well eating meat is just what one did". View the 45 minute video HERE

Some of Singer's public statements are quite stunning. In this 3 part interview he addresses in part 3 the subject of paedophilia which is probably the great taboo of our time. The interviewer asks "paedophilia is just wrong, isn't it"? Singer answers thoughtfully and carefully saying that "it's just wrong" is not a method that we should rely on. My first reaction on hearing his comments made me feel that this is a very dangerous position to take for anyone teaching at an American university. Total about 30 mins.View the videos Part 1Part 2Part 3

One other controversial position Singer has taken involves the American "No fly zone" in Libya in 2011. Like me he took a guarded support of the intervention on humanitarian grounds which riled many on the left who considerd any intervention to be wrong.